A Three Day Weekend!

Yeah! We took a three day weekend...we went up to Vermilion for my nephew's graduation party. We had too many storms and rain but we had a good time. It's always nice to spend time with family. Kay and Dean had a great party for Eric on Saturday...they had almost 100 people show up and luckily we were all under cover when the storms arrived. Later the weather cleared up so everyone could move around a little more and they kids were able to have a bonfire and campout...Jillian loves hanging around with all those "big kids"...she even thought I was going to let her sleep out there with them..NOT!

One thing that was very nice was seeing my cousin Rob and his family. I have only seen him a handful of times since I moved away in 1987. After the graduation party as I thought about our visit it dawned on me that Rob was my first "best friend" in life. We are second cousins and we grew up right next door to each other. We didn't live in a subdivision so it wasn't like we had a bunch of kids our age to play with when were preschool age.....we were the youngest of the group that lived close so we had each other. Our Moms were "stay at home Moms" so Rob and I spent a lot of time together. I can remember just standing out in his front yard playing catch or going down in his basement to play pool or our basement to play ping-pong...we rode bikes together, rode motorcycles together and went sledding and ice skating together in the winter...almost all my memories from being a kid on Risden road include him...I don't have a brother but I would say he was the closest thing you could have if you didn't have the real thing.

Rob's wife brought a black and white photo of Rob and I eating cake together at his 3rd birthday party...I think it just made so many memories come flooding back that I haven't thought about for a long time. He is a great person and he has a great family....I am very thankful that he was such a big part of my life growing up and I will always cherish the memories of our years together!

Today we used our "extra day" to visit Amish Country in Central Ohio. We shopped a little in the town on Berlin and then went to visit Hershberger's Farm. We took a tour of the farm in a real Amish buggy which was pretty neat...when I was a child I used to think that I wanted to be Amish....Jillian said the same thing at lunch today....I quickly told her that they don't have cable but she still thought it sounded pretty good. Jillian got to take a pony ride after our carriage ride...they had some baby animals that we just a few hours old...they were too cute. Of course, we visited the bakery and then went on to the cheese factory...as Tyler says "one of the best things about Amish Country is the food"! It is just such a pretty area...it started to storm as we were leaving and at one point I looked out of the car window and was just amazed at how beautiful the scenery was...the rolling green hills, the bright white houses and barns with the Holstein cows in the pasture...the bright flowers in the yard and the blue/black dark storm clouds with the bright yellow sun trying to poke threw. I am thankful to be able to see such beautiful things......then all Hell broke loose.

Yep, Jillian had a major tantrum in the car. This one lasted about 45 minutes...I wanted to turn around and take her back and drop her off in Amish country so she could really find out what it is like to be Amish. She certainly ruined my plans for a long scenic drive home...we cut back over to the interstate so we could just get home....some days I think we are all going to go crazy because of that girl!!

Here's a quick update on the foobs...I went for another fill on Friday. We decided to just do 50 cc's on each side. The left side went just fine. When she inserted the needle on the right side she immediately pulled it back out and started using her "tool" to find the "access area" again on the expander. In a very calm voice she said "I am pretty sure I just punctured your expander...you will need to watch it and if I did puncture it you will notice that it will go flat by next Thursday or Friday. If it does just call my office and we will go ahead and do your exchange surgery in the next couple weeks"....I think I was in shock...WHAT?? I don't want surgery right now...I wanted to wait until November. I was surprised how calm I was and she pulled an expander out of the cabinet to explain what she "thinks" happened. My expander on my right side has shifted so far under my arm and the "access area" that she sticks the needle into has become VERY difficult to get to....she said that she thinks my muscles will be fine if we go ahead and just put in the final implants...she said she did not want to put another expander in. I am nervous about having the surgery so soon because I have heard of patients having complications if you don't let the muscle "rest" for 6-8 weeks after it is fully expanded. I asked her about this but she doesn't feel that it is an issue...Friday I was pretty overwhelmed once everything sank in but I wasn't upset with her...we are all human...she had just told me about operating thru the night on a mastectomy patient that had severe vomiting from the anesthesia the day before...she had vomited so much that she started bleeding and Dr. K. got called back in to operate on her again...I just kept thinking about that woman and telling myself that things could be a lot worse than a "punctured foob". So, as of today I can't tell that it is getting any smaller so maybe we will get lucky and not have to deal with this later this week...every morning I get up and the first thing I do is check the foob...I sleep on that side so I just kind of envision that I am pushing all the saline out even quicker by putting extra pressure on it... I will let you know how things look later this week...enough for now...I am tired from the long weekend and Jillian is driving me nuts to get off the computer and help her pick out clothes so she can look "vantastic" at school tomorrow...not sure what that is about!!

Happy Birthday to my dear friend Penny - love you!!